13 November 2018

The Henry Rios Mysteries Podcast, A New Gay-Themed Podcast Adapting An Acclaimed Series Of Crime Fiction, Is Coming In January 2019

Iconic Gay, Latino Detective Comes to Life in A New Podcast Debuts January 15

Armando Rey plays Henry Rios in Persigo Press' new podcast

Henry Rios, the gay, Latino lawyer created by Michael Nava in an acclaimed series of mysteries published between 1986 and 2000 is coming to life in a new podcast from Persigo Press. The Henry Rios Mysteries debuts on January 15, 2019.

Season one adapts the first novel in the series, Lay Your Sleeping Head, into a 17-episode podcast inspired by classic radio theater. Rios is voiced by veteran stage and screen actor, Armando Rey with a supporting cast of actors drawn from San Francisco' s theater scene where the podcast is being produced.

The podcast features original music by composer, Josh DeRosa, and is written and produced by Nava working with Oakland sound engineer Dave Peck.

The Henry Rios novels were ground-breaking. Garth Greenwell, writing in The New Yorker called Rios "a detective unlike any other previous protagonist in American noir, whose hard-boiled bona fides – world weariness, wit, a penchant for erotic entanglement – are accompanied by hyper-attentiveness to class and a commitment to the poor."

Compared by reviewers to classic noir writers like Raymond Chandler and Georges Simenon, Marilyn Stasio in The New York Times summed up Nava's reputation when she called him simply "one of our best."

The Rios novels won an unprecedent six Lambda Literary Awards and Nava was honored with the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement in LGBT Literature, awarded annually by the Publisher's Triangle, the association of LGBT publishing professionals.

"I'm bringing Rios back because in an age when every kind of bigotry is being empowered from the top, a gay, Latino hero seems more relevant and necessary than ever," Nava said, explaining his decision to revive the series as a podcast.

He adds, "Podcasting is an entertainment medium, unlike TV and movies, where there are no corporate gatekeepers who decide whose stories are going to be told, thus continuing to marginalize LGBT people and people of color. I also hope to appeal to a new, younger audience while reconnecting with my readers."

Related Video: "Michael Nava reads Henry Rios at the San Francisco Public Library"

Michael Nava is the author of an acclaimed series of seven crime novels featuring gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. The Rios novels won six Lambda Literary awards and Nava was called by the New York Times, “one of our best.” In 2001, he was awarded the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award in LGBT literature. A native Californian and the grandson of Mexican immigrants, he divides his time between San Francisco and Palm Springs.

In 2014, he published The City of Palaces an historical novel set in the years just before and at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Novelist Christopher Bram said about The City of Palaces: “City of Palaces begins as the love story of two good people, a Catholic and an atheist, who find each other in the corrupt world of belle epoch Mexico City. It grows into a magnificent epic about family, politics, art, revolution, and hope. This is a masterly work of old-fashioned storytelling, rich and spacious and moving, a novel that deserves to be compared to The Leopard, Love in the Time of Cholera, and Doctor Zhivago, but with its own intimacy and grandeur.”

In 2016, Korima published a revised version of the first Henry Rios novel, re-titled Lay Your Sleeping Head. In 2017, Korima Press published the novella, Street People. Both books were nominated for Lambda Literary Awards.

In 2018, he announced the formation of his own press, Persigo Press, through which he intends to relaunch the Rios series with a new novel, Carved in Bone, tentatively scheduled for spring, 2019. He will also republish the existing Rios novels. Additionally, as part of the relaunch, he is producing a podcast that adapts Lay Your Sleeping Head into a 17-episode series inspired by classic radio theater.

Nava has also had a distinguished legal career, having earned his law degree from Stanford University. He retired from the law in July 2016. He can reached though his Facebook page, “Michael Nava, Writer”